Harry Potter and the Mage Apprentices
by Ice-Tea-1983
Summary: Rated for; future mild violence, mild "suggestions" and occasional and casual descriptions of bodily functions Crossover Ranma 12 Gold Digger -PREVIEW-


**Harry Potter**

**and the**

**Mage Apprentices**

by

Ice-Tea-1983

Disclaimer

I do not own Harry Potter. I do not own Ranma ½. I do not own Gold Digger. I do not make any money from writing this. I earn nothing from this, but practice, praise and scorn. I do not live in the lap of luxury like I would have if I did own the rights to the copyrighted names above. I do not even own the computer I wrote this on.

However, I do lay claim on – or I think I do – the refined technique named; The Hachi No Subako Sasu. The Beehive Sting. A variation of Genma's forbidden technique involving the vacuum blades, tiny little needles of vacuum sent at a target, like a hive of bees.

There might also be some inventions I lay claim on, but I will let you figure out which they are on your own.

**-Chapter One-**

**The Birthday Present**

In a house in the far outskirts of London, a house that looks like those surrounding it. If one ignores the large obstacle course in the back yard, and the large crates that are scattered around the grounds.

The inside of the house was modelled after a traditional Japanese house. At least the ground floor. The dining room had a traditional setting, with cushions around a low table. The tea room had a similar setting with a smaller table and number of seats. The walls are decorated with pictures. One is of a family, standing in front of an official looking building. From the left; A teenage girl with a brown, bowl-cut hair-style. A teenage girl with long, reddish hair, tied into a loose pony-tail, and wearing a peaceful expression, like a kind house-wife. A teenage girl with bluish-black hair, cut short. Next to her, a teenage boy, with his black hair tied into a pigtail. He is smiling happily like the girl next to him. On the boy's other side was his family. A woman with reddish hair tied into a bun on the nape of her neck, she looked young for her age. A young teenage boy with black spiky hair, and slightly tapered ears. And finally, a young teenage girl with long, curly, brown hair, holding hands with the young teenage boy, she also has slightly tapered ears. It was a wedding picture. The wedding picture of the middle couple.

The entire house was peaceful, as demonstrated by two persons on the same bed. One is a teenage boy, filling nearly the entire length of the queen-sized bed, short, spiked black hair, slightly tapered ears, tanned skin, and a lightning-bolt shaped scar on his forehead above his right eye. The other is a teenage girl, about a head shorter than her bed-mate, long, brown hair braded into a long pig-tail, slightly tapered ears like the boy, tanned skin, and with a face that clearly screamed scholar. Both had highly toned muscles that did not look or act bulky, the sign of skilled martial artists.

These two teenagers are Harry James Potter, and Hermione Granger.

Snuggled together after a long day of training in the Martial Arts. You see, Harry Potter is the Grandmaster of the Anything Goes school of martial arts, The Boy Who Lived, and Hermione is his student. This title of Grandmaster was something Harry gained at age thirteen, and he had to challenge the previous Grandmaster, Happosai, to get it.

Hermione's parents were on a second honeymoon in Greece, so Hermione had spent the past week or two exclusively with Harry. This allowed her to spend more of her free time tinkering with their inventions, which included three connected laptops with supercomputers pressed into them, two for information and plans, one for control over their robotic inventions. The three computers were named Wiz, and had a collective mind, or Artificial Intelligence. A side-effect of the source of power for the computers.

The only item in the room, apart from a bed, a chair and a desk, was a robot without any legs, arms or wheels. It had some crystal pads underneath, and the top was open, leaving all to see the internal workings of the insect-like robot. It was supposed to be a hovering robot, designed for observation and charting. What was being tinkered with now, was a weapons system in case it needed it. This was HMBot #08, or in English, Hovering Magic Robot number eight. Which meant that the previous seven had all been upgraded with weapons, by the hand of Hermione, while Harry tinkered with upgrading their communication devices.

In the door of his room stood Harry's aunt, Nodoka Potter-Saotome, and watched the adorable scene in front of her with misty eyes and thoughts of tiny baby feet running around the house. On her back was the Saotome honour-blade, a katana that is passed down from matriarch to matriarch in the Saotome family. She got it herself when her mother-in-law died not long after the wedding between Nodoka and her former husband Genma Saotome, the man is currently without a last name, as the rest of the people bearing that last name had agreed to throw the man out of the family for the dishonourable deeds he had done over the many years he had lived.

'It's hard to believe,' she said to no one but herself, 'that any son of James would be top student in all his classes and commit himself to anything but pranks and seduction ...'

Nodoka had a hard time accepting the similarities between Harry and his parents, and a harder time accepting the recent events at the Ministry. She sighed and sat down in the chair by Harry's desk, being careful of not moving anything, as he and Hermione were very strict about their little experiments.

'Sirius, dead ...' she muttered and looked down at the sleeping couple.

During the school year just past, Harry was sent telepathic messages from his mortal enemy, the murderer of his parents, Voldemort, whom had come back from the dead the year before last, using the blood of an enemy. Lucky for Harry that he was so quick about making a tactical withdrawal until he could get a handle of the situation, so they had to use the blood of someone else than him.

The telepathic message came during Harry's history Ordinary Wizarding Level test in History of Magic, and was of Sirius Black, Harry's godfather, being tortured to death at the Ministry of Magic, by said enemy.

In a fit of panic, highly unusual for Harry, he and five others went to the Ministry, intent on saving Harry's godfather. Instead, they had walked into a trap, one which they only got out of by sheer experience in martial arts, magic and good luck. There was only one victim, Sirius Black, whom had rushed in to save Harry and his friends when he heard of their plans.

Nodoka smiled at how manly she thought her nephew was turning out to be, despite his curse.

For the ten years since Harry was dropped off at their doorstep in Juuban Tokyo, Japan, to the day he received his letter of acceptance, Harry has been, alongside with his cousin, been put through the most strenuous, dangerous and inhumane training in the martial arts. Genma, Harry's former uncle by marriage, had as much sense as a piece of rotting wood, if not less, so he did not know that throwing a child, no matter what age or gender, into a pit of starving cats while this child was wearing plenty of fish-products, would leave some lasting damage.

Harry was the lucky one of the two children, as his magical ability kicked in and allowed him to consciously learn the martial arts technique they had been attempting to be taught, the Neko-Ken. Ranma had gotten a deadly fear of cats, so strong that if he even heard something that sounded like one, he would jump several feet into the air and cling to whatever was above him.

But this was not the only idiotic training the two boys were put through. Their training involved anything from swimming the stretch from Japan to China with heavy backpacks on their backs, to running through a wet marsh filled with all sorts of nasty surprises while carrying their uncle in a sofa on their back, separately. In their days, both Harry and Ranma were sent into temples they passes to learn, or steal techniques. Harry was, of the two, the one with the most ki and chi ability, because of his magical heritage.

The year of his tenth birthday, Genma had taken Harry and Ranma to the Pools of Sorrow in China. Also known as the accursed springs, Jusenkyo. A valley with a hundred pools of water, bamboo poles sticking out of each pools in varying numbers. Each pool had its own tragic history and curse.

After being stunned at seeing his uncle fall into a pool and emerge as a panda, Harry had been pushed into the spring of the drowned girl. Before he could hear the details, Ranma had jumped in the same pool to save a nearly paralysed Harry from drowning, and they had both become cursed to change form into the opposite gender whenever splashed with cold water. The only known temporary cure is warm water, which changes the cursed back. When Harry was in his cursed form, he was told he looked just like his mother, right down to the red hair that reached his knees in that form.

But Harry and Ranma had gotten out of the training as very strong fighters, probably the strongest human fighters of several generations. Genma had, a month or two after Jusenkyo, taken them to an old friend in Nerima, Tokyo, Japan, and first when they were a few city blocks from there, revealed that Ranma was to marry one of that friend's daughters.

Ranma had nearly immediately fallen in love with the youngest daughter, but out of pure spite, he refused to reveal his own feelings in the matter, other than his strong wish of not wanting to marry yet. Akane had done the same, and they were both blind to what the other really felt, making them feel bad at the insults that were traded for show.

Things turned into a disaster when several other arranged engagements were revealed. Most of the dowry had been meals or money. The old panda had even promised Harry away, to Hermione's parents, but the Grangers had not expected to ever see Harry again, let alone find out that he is a wizard at the same school as their witch daughter. They had taken Harry in after his first year of schooling in Britain, mailing a letter to Genma that stated they needed to "test his worthiness to wed their daughter". They were all for the arranged engagement, but believed that the two youths should have a say in the matter. It was agreed between the two children that they could wait and see.

In his first year, Harry had used a huge three-headed dog as a sparring partner until he started training with Hermione, not exactly teaching her, but doing some of his basic moves, and not stopping her from copying him. He had killed a professor that year, while protecting a stone that could produce either gold by touching it to any metal, or produce a potion known as the Elixir of Life. That professor had been possessed, in a manner, by Voldemort. This had been his first attempt at regaining solid form once more.

In Harry's second year, they had a useless professor to take the job left by the dead professor. This professor was also responsible for removing all the bones in Harry's right arm when he had barely sprained it as the iron ball had crashed into it, which resulted in Harry needing to get them regrown, a very painful ordeal. That year Harry had killed a basilisk, and managed to fully change into a chosen Animagus form, one of a huge cheetah, a Nundu, the most dangerous magical creature in the world, one that required at the very least; one hundred fully trained wizards to put down. His best friend, Hermione, had also chosen this form, but did not manage to transform fully until the following summer. The idiot professor, Gilderoy Lockhart, lost his memory when he tried to steal Harry's thunder and pass it off as his own, he was admitted to St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies. This was also the year when Harry discovered the Whomping Willow as a sparring partner in the absence of the three-headed dog.

In Harry's third year, he admitted his feelings to Hermione, and they agreed to become "sweethearts". Not long after this joyous news, Harry won the title of Grandmaster of the School of Anything Goes Martial Arts. A day after this, Harry's cousin Ranma, wed Akane at a London city hall, only signing a few papers, and a small celebration later that day. This was also the year when the "deranged and dangerous killer" Sirius Black escaped the wizarding prison Azkaban, supposedly to kill Harry. This turned out to be only the official version of the story. The real killer had the Animagus form of a rat, and had been in the Weasley family for twelve years, posing as a pet. That killer ran away as soon as he was found out, but not before Harry managed to erase all his memory from the past five years. This was also the year when Harry first managed to control his curse after having depended on a ki-shield around his person to protect him from water, for several years.

In Harry's fourth year, he was unwillingly entered in a wizarding tournament for the students three years older than he was. The rule was that only one student per school, of the three present, may enter, but as Harry's name popped out of the Goblet of Fire, he was chosen as the second champion of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry managed all the tasks without much trouble, other than people accusing him of cheating when he managed all three tasks without the use of magic, or at least his wand.

The first task had consisted of retrieving a golden egg from a nesting dragon. Harry had simply used his martial arts skills to avoid the deadly swings the Hungarian Horntail took at him, and used the Soul of Ice technique to avoid being toasted by the fire it spat. The dragon had not been pleased at all when Harry had gotten his egg, and tried to get at him, failing to do this. Harry made sure that none of the real eggs were harmed when the dragon rampaged at his victory. He had nearly gotten top marks, if not for the headmaster of an opposing school giving him a deliberate low score because of his lack of magic use.

The second task had been to retrieve a selected person from the village square of the local merpeople. This person had, for Harry, been Hermione. Harry used a special ki technique he had invented, to produce a bubble of air around his head, and manipulated the chi around that bubble to supply him with fresh air from the water. Harry had been the first to arrive, with far less than an hour left, and retrieved Hermione. It was fairly obvious that none of the kidnapped were harmed by being under water, as they still had a pulse, even after a fairly long time. With much more than half an hour remaining of his hour-long deadline, Harry swam to shore with Hermione slightly dazed in his arm. Again, the same headmaster gave Harry a low score for not using magic.

The third task had been a maze, filled with all sorts of magical obstacles. It had been a piece of cake for Harry to slice the hedges to shreds and run in a straight line to the final destination. He only held back a few minutes at the entrance to give his opponents a chance. He arrived at the same time as Cedric Diggory, and after having killed a giant spider, an Acromantula, they agreed to take the trophy together, and earn Hogwarts the win anyway. This led to them both being sent to a far-away graveyard, where Voldemort and Wormtail were waiting. Cedric had been killed instantly, and there had been nothing Harry could have done, as he was momentarily stunned by the massive pain in his head, before he had shoved it aside and used a Secret Technique of his school of martial arts, a tactical retreat to contemplate on the best approach. While he was doing this, Wormtail, or Peter Pettigrew, was forced to use Cedric Diggory's blood to resurrect Voldemort. During this, Ron Weasley, Harry's other friend, got angry with Harry for not entering him into the contest as well, even if Harry did not enter his name. The stubborn redhead did not apologise before Harry returned from the graveyard where Voldemort had killed Cedric Diggory in order to regain his body.

In Harry's fifth year, Harry killed a few dementors that attacked him and Ranma Saotome, Harry's cousin, and got in trouble with the Ministry of Magic when he performed a Patronus charm through his katana, making it, in combination with a bit of unicorn blood that he had filled into the carvings on said sword, cleaved the undead creatures in half only by barely touching them. He had a lot of trouble with the Ministry when he destroyed their interrogation chair as it restrained him during his trial, and this followed him through the entire school year in the form of being talked and written about as mad and dangerous, and the new professor of Defence Against the Dark Arts, Dolores Umbridge.

At the end of the year, Harry lost his godfather because he lost his head when thinking that one of the few father-figures he had was about to die.

Nodoka sighed once again and leaned forward, giving her nephew a peck on his forehead.

The young man stirred and looked first to his sleeping girlfriend before realising that it had not been her that kissed his forehead.

'Happy birthday, Harry.'

Harry turned and saw his aunt sitting by his bed. He nearly panicked, and would have if not for the fact that both Hermione and himself were clothed in proper sleeping-attire, nothing frilly or revealing, even if Harry - for reasons only he knows - is unable to wear anything on his upper body while sleeping.

His cat-like, green eyes widened slightly as the implications of his aunt's words sunk in. It was his birthday. He had turned sixteen without realising it.

In his arms, Hermione stirred awake as well, her feline senses telling her something was going on that she shouldn't miss.

'What's wrong?' she asked sleepily.

'Nothing,' said Nodoka calmly.

Hermione's eyes shot open in panic as she checked herself for anything indecent or revealing.

'Calm down,' aunt Nodoka chuckled, 'nothing is wrong, I was just congratulating Harry on his sixteenth birthday.'

Hermione immediately smiled and embraced Harry.

'Happy birthday, Grandmaster,' she cooed and gave him a peck on the lips.

'Please stop calling me that!' groaned Harry and plopped his head onto his pillow.

'But it is your title,' protested Hermione in a purr, and nuzzled her head against his neck, very much like a cat. This was another side-effect of Harry teaching her the true Neko-Ken, using humane methods, mainly meditation. Their slightly feline looks, namely ears, canines and eyes, were also a side-effect from mastering that technique. A more open show of affections, and a natural purring / growling / roaring ability was another.

Aunt Nodoka smiled at the bickering couple.

'I just wanted to congratulate you, Harry, go back to sleep,' she said, silencing the teens. 'I will hold all mail until morning. Good night.'

'Good night, auntie!' both teens called in a hushed tone before settling for some sleep again.

The moment the door closed, Hermione gave Harry another kiss.

'Good night,' she cooed and hugged him close, like a young child would with a teddy bear. Harry just knew that she was right, even in that simple sentence, and dozed off in the warmth of the summer air and body-heat. He had pleasant dreams all night about a certain brunette that slept in his arms.

'Happy birthday!'

Harry smiled weakly and nodded in acknowledgement as he took his seat at the breakfast table of number seven Tranquil Drive. Hermione sat down next to him with a gift-wrapped box in her lap, nearly bouncing in place out of excitement.

On the table were some other presents, also wrapped in festive paper and ribbons. Many of them were from friends and family, but one or two had come from "fans" of Harry's, the only wizards that had thought of sending him presents through the British postal service. Professor Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, had set up wards around the area that repelled owls carrying mail, or at least those not approved of in advance.

Aunt Nodoka placed a huge plate of food in front of Harry, and repeated the procedure for each of the children, even if two of them were legal adults of twenty-one, Nodoka would always think of them as her children. Harry, Ranma and Akane whipped out their chop-sticks and started eating at blurred speeds. Hermione ate with forks, and at a slower pace. Doing the level of training the three were doing required a lot of food to keep them up and about.

The large meals were quickly gone, and Hermione handed Harry the present she had been holding on to through the meal, accompanying it with a quick and shy peck to his lips. Despite having been together for nearly three years, they were still getting used to the public displays of affections, Ron Weasley, their friend from school, didn't seem to have a clue about their relationship, but he was born clueless. Very few did know about the relationship, because while at school, they kept the kissing and holding of hands for when they were alone.

Hermione helped Harry unwrap his present from her when she thought he was going too slow. Inside was a finely polished wooden case with golden clasps and hinges. When the case was opened, there were two silvery semi-automatic handguns inside (ala Desert Eagle). Engraved in gold along it, were their Animagus forms and some runes.

'It's the finished Magic Guns.' She said excitedly, 'That one,' she pointed to the one that had a green-tinted handle, 'is made to fire stunners. That one,' she said, pointing to the one with the red-tinted handle, 'is made to fire reductors. They can fire twelve shots before needing to recharge energy for a minute, using the surrounding chi. I already have a pair myself, and finished installing a pair in each of our HMBots. What do you think?'

'You made these?' asked Harry as he picked up the green-tinted one.

'From the plans we started, and Wiz finished,' she agreed. 'Look, there's even a holster for each of them.'

Harry put the guns in their respective holsters and made them vanish into sub-space for later use.

'Thank you,' he said and gave her a hesitant peck on the lips after glancing at his cousin and Akane, the wife of that cousin. It wasn't that he did not enjoy kissing his best friend turned girlfriend, but he was still shy about showing it to others.

There were several other presents Harry found interesting.

A Defence Against the Dark Arts Manual wrapped in a green knitted sweater along with assorted pastry. From the Weasley family.

A wand's maintenance kit.

A small mystery egg, from Hagrid. The mystery egg had a shell as hard as Ranma's head, in other words, one could travel out in orbit around earth and throw it with the force of a cannon towards the earth, and it would only crack upon impact. Harry had a nasty feeling about this egg.

A wizarding manual to secret martial arts techniques. A few of them, Harry did not know, so he stored it, along with everything else he got, in several sub-space pockets. This was the reason behind Harry's room looking so bare, he kept all his possessions in sub-space pockets where they were safe and within easy reach at all times.

From his aunt and closest family, Harry got equipment for maintaining his large selection of weapons. Harry was quite pleased, but he did not bother to mention to them that during his school days, he had lots of time to spare, letting him set up a long series of protections on all his countless blades, and weapons.

This left only one package, sent from Japan, or rather, Nabiki Tendo, Akane's sister. It was accompanied by a letter.

_Dear Neko-Chan_

_Happy birthday, and many, many more. I found this in a shop filled with all sorts of strange things. The shop keeper said that it had some magic to it, so I immediately thought of you, especially with one detail of said present, you'll see._

_Kasumi says hello, and apologises very much for not sending you all notice about, or invitations for her wedding last week, or two weeks ago by the time you get this. Dr Tofu seems to really be walking on clouds, and has stopped mangling his patients whenever his top nurse is about. I guess all he needed was some tender loving care to get over that ..._

_The panda is still depressed, even more so than father, and always keeps a jug of sake at hand. When he sleeps, he has the neck pressed against his mouth like a toddler with a bottle._

_The other day, I had to interfere with the Kuno family's plans about going to get "the foul sorcerer Saotome and his oni servant," and "Ranma-sama and that annoying little boy." In plain kanji, Tatewaki wishes to slay you and Ranma, to rescue Akane and the pig-tailed goddess from Ranma's control. Kodachi wants to do the opposite. So keep on your toes._

_Ryoga stopped by, or rather, crashed through our bathroom wall demanding that Ranma shows his cowardly face, before asking Kasumi and I what we were doing naked in Norway, then dropped out in a faint with blood gushing out his nose. It was quite hilarious._

_Well, I need to get back to breakfast, I have to be at work in half an hour. Stay in touch._

_Nabiki Tendo_

Akane growled angrily when Harry read the letter aloud, muttering something about perverted pigs and various meals that involved that meat, not to mention what she'd do with Ryoga if he ever showed up here. It was enough to make Harry and Ranma wince in sympathy.

Slowly Harry unwrapped the present, and ended up with a silver mirror composed of finely knotted wire for frame and handle. At the top of the mirror was an emerald in the shape of an eye. Nearly the exact same shade of colour that Harry's eyes were.

Just as Harry and Hermione were examining the exquisite mirror, Hedwig, Harry's snowy white pet owl, came through the window with the _Daily Prophet_, the wizarding newspaper, listing those gone missing, praising the efforts the Minister of Magic was making in apprehending Death Eaters, and praising Harry as the misunderstood hero.

'I wish we could get away from this for a while ...' he sighed.

'Me too ...' agreed Hermione and gave him a supporting hug.

The mirror glowed for a moment before settling in the emerald eye. The thing blinked, and a deep resounding baritone voice said; 'You have been found worthy, wish granted.'

CRASH!

The mirror broke into thousand pieces.

There were no sign of neither Harry nor Hermione. They had vanished, only the broken shards of the mirror remained, and their families and the wizarding world would be in chaos for weeks to follow this disappearance. Voldemort would have his minions search high and low for him, as would Dumbledore with his allies. The golden couple were gone, and the Daily Prophet ran interviews with Harry's relatives, with a banner that proclaimed: _Boy Who Lived wanted to get away from it all, he got his wish?_


End file.
